Sunday, January 04, 2004

There are some ubiquitous techincal problems in the art world that could be mended so easily. One of my big pet peeves is how museums tend to put very little thought behind the lighting of exhibits. Lighting is crucial to experiencing visual art. All we see is light, for Ah Pook's sweet sake. A poorly lit or overly glarey room can ruin one's art experience.
One of the other major problems in the art world is art photography. Take, for example, the dog calliope I spoke about earlier. It's actual title is Kaleidophonic Dog. It's a piece by Stephan von Huene, an expatriot artist who passed away in 2000. Also an artist whose work I'm finding I'd probably enjoy learning more about. But as for the photography of the dog, it'd be easy for you to recreate the results of my experiment. If you google search for images of Kaleidophonic Dog, you do get one picture of the piece. It's tiny, you see very little detail, and it's about fifty percent background. Shame! If you can find a better professionally taken picture of it and send it to me (in an attachment please. Juno don't like pictures.) I'll send you a book... of my choosing. It'll be a cool one, I swear. And this contest excludes anybody who was with me when we went to see the Kaleidophonic Dog because I know my friends took pictures. Or maybe I should open it up to them. Maybe if they have a better picture they deserve a book from me. It'd prove my hypothesis that so very often the experts are total incompetents. Depends on how I feel when I get the picture.
Also, at the LACMA I saw a Toulouse-Lautrec, who many of you know is one of my god artists. The piece was The Opera Messalina (at Bordeaux.) I have a couple of books of Toulouse-Lautrec's works in my personal collection. The piece, when I saw it in person, was dripping blue green in all the shadows. The lady who the directional forces point to wears a searing red gown. The guards that line behind her back to inifinity all have bright pink on either side of their helmets almost like street lamps. The male in armor in front has a satanic face that you can only barely make out, like you're looking at him out of the corner of your eye. And in the dripping background you can see beasts jumping around. All of what I've just described I could only see when I saw the original painting in person. Plus I got to see Henri's cool little signature symbol. None of this is visible in my art books. It's kind of like when you drop acid and see skulls and octopus men in the carpet as real as rain and the next day you look at the exact same spot and all you can see is carpet.
Golly, this started off as a passing observation and turned into a ramble.
Anyway, my lungs are quite sick. They're full of horrible things, terrible to tell. The flu is going around, so they say. But there's also this other thing that's going around that is just a cough. You're totally able to go about your day but you cough like a kaleidophonic dog. At first, at least. My friendly advice is just this: if you begin to get this, don't go about your day. Take a day for hot lemon and honey, a good 12-14 hour's sleep, and cuddling up with your quilt in front of the DVD player eating large bowls of chicken noodle soup with so much garlic in it that you can't taste anything else. It's going to suck because you aren't going to feel sick enough to warrant such behavior. But I have learned the hard way that if you sally forth, your lungs will fill with rot and mold and hair and little wooden boys until you cannot sleep for coughing. And then where will you be. Always remember, it's better to take that sick day than to work five days miserably. Better yet, quit your job and slack off.
In short, it's a cold winter (even my New York friends who were visiting were commenting on the cold last weekend) so take care of yourselves, Blogskateers.

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About Me

This is where I post internety things and commentaries. If you want to know about me, look at the vast archive of this blog or check out http://www.livejournal.com/users/possumbane/
I sell rare books for a meager living.
I'm terribly handsome and attractive.
That's all you really need to know when the chips are down.